I am not sure as to why, but this is the kind of move one makes in desperation. It requires a substantial outlay of money (up to $450) for each T-Mobile customer who responds to it, and there are some 30+ million or more of them. Is this AT&T's way of trying to 'buy' T-Mobile's customers outright, since they couldn't 'buy' T-Mobile in the past due to regulations? I kind of like T-Mobile's ideas on a sort of un-carrier freedom, if you will, so is this the price for bringing an end to freedom and ingenuity at T-Mobile? I have AT&T service, and I never really thought of them before as being desperate for much of anything... I must ask the same question you did: why such an aggressive (desperate) move?

The answer is simple, AT&T wants more customers and since you can bring your T-Mobile phone to their network it's even easier to switch without being entered into a contract! To me this is the ultimate freedom, it gives us customers the freedom to make a choice without any consequences. Basically, try AT&T and if you don't like us then go try another carrier. I just can't understand why people are complaining? Go to rootmetrics.com and check out their network (data, voice and text) and you'll see that compared to T-Mobile they offer much more in MORE places. To me that is worth the couple bucks (do the math, its not much more than T-Mobile) each month.

I'm not really complaining. I already am on AT&T, and I really don't care too much about T-Mobile except on points of interest as of late, but I just wanted to re-ask the question in the context that came to my mind.

I can see your point. My only thought, though, is "are the big names really that hard up for customers that they will try to cannibalize each other alive?" It seems like they are really going out on a limb, and willing to part with a lot of money, in order to get T-Mobile customers to switch to AT&T during a time when it sounds to me like things are going very well at T-Mobile, too.

I used to work for T-Mo and during that time frame I kept my at&t account which has been my line for the past 18 years. when I had my employee line I had no issues what so ever with coverage like they state here, I don't know why they get such a bad rap about coverage. Just to make things clear the reason I kept my line with at&t is because I have a grandfathered plan called North America, that was the only reason I kept my at&t line during my work at T-mobile. But right now I do have to say T-Mobile is looking very attractive with their new world data plan even, as the mention a lot of people don't travel as much internationally but it does help for the what if I travel do I want to pay between $1-$5 per minute while I travel, and $20 pe...(continues)

I also used to work for T-Mobile, and I also kept an AT&T line throughout the process... though mostly just because my wife at the time (we are no longer married) refused to touch any phone from anything but AT&T with even a ten-foot pole. I mostly used my employee line to tether to our home computer (unlimited data plus tethering for just $19.99/mo. was the consumer plan at the time - a great deal) and carry my work phone into work, but when I stopped working for T-Mobile she insisted that I come back fully to the AT&T fold. There was one place we lived where the EDGE coverage wasn't complete, and so my data speed on tethering went down from about 250 kbps to more like 50 kbps (plain old GPRS), but otherwise I never had any issues. I use...(continues)